


la douleur exquise

by starxreactor



Series: Stony Bingo 2019 [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Bodyswap, Character Death, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutually Unrequited, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Pining, Requited Unrequited Love, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, lmao thats a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 13:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18389765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starxreactor/pseuds/starxreactor
Summary: “I…” Steve starts. He clears his throat. “My chest hurts. A lot. And I feel like I can’t breathe?”Tony lets out a whistling breath. He’d known Steve would have to deal with that, but he still doesn’t like it, not just because Steve is uncomfortable but because he doesn’t want to deal with the pity that’ll come with it once this whole thing is over – because it will end, there’s no way he’ll let either of them be trapped in these foreign bodies forever.He breathes in, testing his new body. The air rushes into his lungs, and he’s expecting the pain to blossom in his chest, choking him, cutting it open with its thorns and letting the agonizing petals spill out – but there’s nothing. A blank canvas, waiting for the flowers to spatter against its surface and paint it in the colors of hurt.In a way, though, he’d almost welcome the blooming ache, prefer it to the heavy knot of guilt sitting in his stomach, settling like a stone in water. What right does he have to steal Steve’s body, live in it, take care of it, use every single one of its privileges, while Steve has to deal with Tony’s old, beaten, broken up carcass?-The manifestation of Tony's love is slowly killing him. Steve finds out.





	la douleur exquise

**Author's Note:**

> dnasjhbdhjsdb due to technical issues i had to repost this.
> 
> This is for the Stony Bingo square T4: powerswap. I initially interpreted it as a bodyswap so that's what I went with.
> 
> Please heed the tags. Tony is not necessarily suicidal in this fic, but he can definitely be interpreted that way so I tagged it just to be safe.
> 
> Major thanks to [duckmoles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckmoles/pseuds/duckmoles) for the beta read. <3

“How are you holding up?” Tony asks as his own body –  _ Steve _ – walks into the workshop. 

Steve looks up at him through Tony’s eyes, and isn’t that disconcerting? He knew that people have only ever seen reflections of themselves, never their true appearance – and those reflections change a lot more than people may think, which is why Tony feels as though he’s looking at a stranger who’s not really a stranger.

“I…” Steve starts. He clears his throat. “My chest hurts. A lot. And I feel like I can’t breathe?”

Tony lets out a whistling breath. He’d known Steve would have to deal with that, but he still doesn’t like it, not just because Steve is uncomfortable but because he doesn’t want to deal with the pity that’ll come with it once this whole thing is over – because it  _ will _ end, there’s no way he’ll let either of them be trapped in these foreign bodies forever.

He breathes in, testing his new body. The air rushes into his lungs, and he’s expecting the pain to blossom in his chest, choking him, cutting it open with its thorns and letting the agonizing petals spill out – but there’s nothing. A blank canvas, waiting for the flowers to spatter against its surface and paint it in the colors of hurt.

In a way, though, he’d almost welcome the blooming ache, prefer it to the heavy knot of guilt sitting in his stomach, settling like a stone in water. What right does he have to steal Steve’s body, live in it, take care of it, use every single one of its privileges, while Steve has to deal with Tony’s old, beaten, broken up carcass?

“It’s normal,” he says quietly, unused to the timbre of his voice. “You – you get used to it, after a while.”

Steve frowns at him with those eyes, and Tony never realized just how sad they could get, so he can’t help the jolt of sorrow that strikes through him. Steve looks like that because of  _ him _ . “Sorry,” he says.

That only makes his eyes get bigger and sadder, glimmering like the sun setting on the ocean. “It’s not your fault, Tony. I just – gee, I didn’t know you went through that.”

Tony turns his back to him, wanting to hunch over and make himself smaller. He crosses his arms instead. “No one was supposed to know. It’s not something that bothers me, really. It’s a reminder.”   
  
A small hand comes to rest on his bicep. It doesn’t even span the whole thing, and Tony is struck by the size difference between them. Normally, when he’s in his own body, he doesn’t feel it as much. He gives as good as he gets, takes up all the space in the room on purpose. Larger than life, because that way, when people beat him down, break him apart, there’s still enough of him left to recover. 

But now he is painfully aware of just how fragile and breakable his body is, scared of making one wrong move and irreparably leaving a mark on it. “A reminder of what?”

Tony twists his mouth. “I… Just what I’m working towards.” He doesn’t say it’s a reminder of all the pain and death he’s caused, a reminder of how he lost his soul long ago ( if he ever had one ), a reminder of his mission, his duty to the world.

His love.

“And what is that?” Steve asks patiently. He’s close enough that Tony can feel the puffs of his breath against his neck. They come rapidly and shallowly, forced out between the roots constricting Steve’s chest.

“The future,” he breathes, because he can’t say the truth: that he’s in love with Steve and it’s killing him.

Steve comes around, seating himself on the worktable in front of Tony so he’s forced to look at him. “And that’s how you deal with it?”

Tony shrugs. “I think of what’s important.”  _ Your brilliant smile, your azure eyes, the way you sigh fondly when I do something stupid, those ridiculous, impossible muscles.  _ “At the end of the day, my chronic pain is not something that matters to the rest of the world.”

Steve tilts his head. “It is important and it matters to  _ me _ . I don’t like – knowing that’s what you’ve been going through all this time. I mean, how can you even fight like this? I can barely stand.”

It’s Tony’s turn to tilt his head in confusion. “Wasn’t it like this for you before the serum?”

Steve pushes himself off the table, coming right to Tony’s chest –  _ Steve’s  _ chest, all clean and empty and lacking the tangle of flowers and thorns that pour into his every breath. “Remembering and experiencing are two different things.” He taps Tony’s chest, right where the arc reactor would be. The finger feels like a brand, and yet it can’t compare to the exquisite pain that has haunted his every waking moment up until now, the sensation of yet another knot of petals blooming in his chest and filling up the cavity where his heart should be. 

He feels for Steve, he really does, and not just because he’s slowly bleeding to death as the sharp thorns of his love tear apart his insides. He knows he should warn him, but he can’t force the words out of his mouth, almost as though there’s a scattering of flowers choking him, but there’s no way it’s possible, Steve doesn’t love him, if he did then Tony wouldn’t be–

He’s just a coward, letting Steve figure out himself.

But how can he tell him? It’s better he not know the truth. If Steve were to learn that Tony died because of his devotion for him, it would break Steve. He would never forgive himself, even if it’s Tony’s fault for having his chest wide open and vulnerable to the seeds of torture, of love.

The best thing he can do is to fix this problem, figure out how to reverse the spell, before Steve dies in Tony’s body because Tony decided to love too much, too easy.

He pastes a plastic smile on his face – he’s sure on Steve’s face, it looks more than fake – unnatural, disconcerting. “Well, the quicker I get to fix this the quicker it’ll become my problem again.”

“It  _ shouldn’t  _ be.”

Tony shakes his head. “We don’t have time for this conversation right now. If you could – leave, or just sit on the couch drawing or something. I need to study the charts Bruce gave me.”

Steve gives him one last sad look that nearly makes his chest clench in the way it used to. The flowers are a part of him, and that’s what strikes him more than anything else. He’s so used to the feeling of their soft, velvety petals enveloping his innards, winding their stems around his lungs, that he feels empty without them. They remind him that he’s capable of love, that he’s not entirely a heartless monster.  

What is he without the flowers, the pain?

An empty, soulless husk that lacks any sort of feeling.

Despite the suffering the flowers cause him, despite the pain and agony and eventual death, he misses them. They’re his companions, the only things he can depend on in this terrifying world. They gently guide him in the right direction, show him what needs to be done – tell him that he is worth something and remind him that he’s not completely gone.

  
  
  


Steve doesn’t know what to think of Tony. 

Well, he does. He’s an exceptional fighter, a great teammate despite what he says, and one of his closest friends. But right now, he doesn’t know what to think of Tony. He’s being more dismissive than usual, wanting to hide the pain that seemingly makes up his days but unable to when  _ Steve  _ is the one experiencing it.

There’s a constant tickling in his throat, almost as though there is a fairy-light brush of petals against the back of throat. When he breathes in, he feels a sharp sting in his chest, like tiny little blades are ripping him apart. The skin around the arc reactor is dead, numb – killed by his own heart.

He feels so, so in awe of this man and what he goes through everyday, and so, so depressed by the fact that he  _ has  _ to go through this everyday. And that’s why Steve doesn’t know what to think.

He’s torn, and not just because of the sensation in his chest slowly tearing him apart more and more with each passing second.

Steve’s in his bathroom when it first happens, trying his best to maintain the immaculate beard Tony has. He feels the constant tickle get stronger, until he has no choice but to cough and let go of the razor. He coughs, and suddenly he can’t stop coughing, because he can’t breathe, there’s something blocking his airway, and he keeps coughing as he sinks down to his knees. There are flashes of red every time he manages to open his eyes before he has to close them again. He’s breathing as best he can despite the obstruction, coughing until hopefully it stops choking him.

Suddenly, the thing in his throat is hacked up onto the ground, and he opens his eyes, staring down at the bloody daffodil innocently seated in front of him. The tickle isn’t completely gone, and he starts coughing again, this time soft petals accompanied by tiny splatters of blood spilling out of his mouth.

There’s a moment where Steve wonders what the hell just happened, how he managed to throw up a bunch of flowers. Pure panic overtakes his system because this has never happened before, ever, and he has no idea what it means. He stands up gingerly and looks in the mirror, gazing at the wide, brown eyes, the beard, the tanned skin.

It’s Tony.

There’s numbness in his body, coldness in his bones. It seems – unreal, like a fairytale. Steve’s never imagined it was possible for someone to – throw up flowers, unless they ate them beforehand. But there’s no way, he thinks as he glances at the wadded up blossom. It’s whole.

This is something entirely Tony, or a side effect of being in the wrong body, though he could not possibly come up with an explanation as to why that would cause him to throw up a flower. Shakily, he steps out of the bathroom, leaving the mess for now. He’s half convinced he’s stuck in some of dream state, because there’s no way –  _ no way _ that should be possible.

Steve stands there for a moment, wondering what to do, if he should just go about his day and pretend this never happened, but then he realizes there’s no way. Judging by the ever-present scratch in his throat and the weight in his chest, it’s common. It  _ won’t  _ go away.

Why did Tony never mention it to him?

Well, how could he? Just walk up to him and say, “Oh, by the way, sometimes I throw up flowers, but it’s nothing to worry about?” Steve would never have believed him, and Tony avoids things that he perceives as hurtful or threatening to him.

He grabs his laptop and types in “throwing up flowers.” He could just ask JARVIS, but in a way, he can’t bring himself to do that. He’d be… confirming with another being what had just happened. It would make the dream real, no longer a fantasy.

All he gets are tragic stories of a person falling in love with someone who didn’t return their feelings, and then throwing up flowers until the roots rip apart their chest and they die. Fairytale-like things. Nothing that makes sense in real life.

But then, spitting out a flower doesn’t make sense either, does it? Steve wonders, breathing in as deep as he can without the pain of the flowers blinding him and taking root, if he’s imagining all this – being Tony, throwing up the daffodil.

Steve is near ready to give up finding an answer before he finds a news article from five years ago. It details one of the few recorded instances of the Hanahaki disease, which is exactly what all those fairytales consisted of.

The Hanahaki disease.

It has to be what Tony has. Except – it means he’s in love with someone, and that love is unreciprocated. He recalls the daffodil lying on his bathroom floor, surrounded by the pieces of Tony’s scattered love, and looks up the meaning of it.

Unrequited love.

Steve faintly wonders who the hell could possibly not love Tony, because he’s beautiful, and kind, and smart, and charming. He’s just – perfect. Whoever it is is missing out.

His mind is far away from his body at this point, and that makes sense, because this isn’t his body, is it, it’s Tony’s; he’s just living in it for the moment. 

It takes him a few moments to recall the disease had been fatal most of the time, and when he does, there’s a sudden pounding in his chest that hurts, strong roots pushing back against his beating heart.

Tony’s going to die. He’ll  _ die  _ if this mysterious person doesn’t love him back. Steve wants to go and shake Tony right now, demand he tell who this person is because he’s going to die, and he’s seemingly accepted it if he’s not trying to do anything, tell anyone. But Steve  _ can’t  _ allow that. He won’t. He loves Tony too much to let him go that easily.

He spends the rest of his night researching everything he can on this disease, looking for cures and possible treatments. There’s next to nothing on the disease. The only possible cure seems to be if Tony’s love is suddenly reciprocated or if the flowers are surgically removed.

Why Tony hasn’t done that is beyond him.

By the time the sun shines through his window, brightening the room and casting him in a golden light, he’s close to passing out from sleep deprivation.

Steve had forgotten that he can’t go as long without sleep, that although Tony may be accustomed to his body feeling like shit, Steve’s not used to it.

He shuts down his laptop, ready to wander into the kitchen and beeline towards the coffee machine, when he feels it again. A choking feeling that spreads from his chest and throat to the rest of his body because he can’t breathe, he can’t, he’s bleeding and coughing and it’s a mess. It takes less time for this one to come up, possibly because Steve is more accustomed to it this time.

He stares down at the flower, studying it. It’s different from a daffodil – pink, spotted with blood, and heart shaped. “JARVIS?” he croaks, breaking his self-imposed silence. “What – what is this flower?”

“That would be a bleeding heart, Captain Rogers.” There’s no emotion in JARVIS’ voice, nothing that betrays what he could possibly be thinking or feeling about what’s going on. 

A bleeding heart.

Oh, Tony.

  
  
  


Steve isn’t exactly sure how to confront Tony about this. He’s sure Tony knows what he’s going through but will most likely not say anything, meaning it will fall on Steve to bring it up. How he’s going to do is that beyond him. 

But first, coffee.

It’s not lost on Steve that he’s adopting Tony’s mannerisms as well, because before this whole thing he never drank coffee – not because he disliked it, but he just didn’t need it. The only coffee he ever did drink was those sugary frappuccinos, but now he can feel the shakes and tremors in his body that come from a sleepless night and caffeine withdrawal.

He could just stop drinking coffee, make Tony a little healthier, but he knows it won’t change anything once they switch back so he might as well not bother.

He stumbles into the kitchen where Clint and Natasha are seated, eating breakfast.

“Oh, hey, Tony,” Clint says, then blinks. “Uh, I mean Steve. You’re still Steve, right?”

“Unfortunately,” Steve says, only half joking. He heads right to the coffee machine, getting a new brew started. 

Natasha follows him with her eyes, gaze calculating and clear like jade. “You look like shit. Did you sleep at all?”

“Nope,” Steve says, unconsciously tapping his fingers on the arc reactor.

He can feel the disapproval emanating from her. “Steve, you know you don’t need to actually behave like Tony, right?”

“I know, I know, I was planning on sleeping, but–” he can’t tell them, Tony would never forgive him, “–some things came up and I got distracted.”

He doesn’t feel hungry, which is bizarre for him, but he has to remind himself that he’s not in his own body and Tony eats like a bird most of the time. The coffee maker dings, and he pours it out into a mug, dumping in a bunch of sugar and milk. Then he seats himself at the table and proceeds to steal pieces of Clint’s breakfast.

They watch him – Steve can tell they’re confused – and then Clint says, “You sure you’re not Tony? I’m starting to wonder if this is some sort of prank.”

“Tony’s in the workshop, I’m sure, if you want proof.” There’s no way he would go for a morning run, no matter how restless his body would feel.

The persistent ache around his arc reactor, his heart, gets stronger, wrapping around his chest like bands and squeezing tightly. Steve knows what’s coming next, and he stands up quickly, heading over to the nearest bathroom and ignoring the duo’s questions.

He kneels down in front of the toilet, hacking up all of Tony’s love, and that’s the awful thing about this, because he’s just a passenger in this body. It’s not truly his, he’s simply privy to the most intense, private part of Tony (his bleeding heart and his love) and Steve’s just a dirty voyeur, he feels like he’s destroying a bit of Tony’s heart every time he throws up another petal, using up another bit of love that should be Tony’s and Tony’s only.

He stares down at the floating flower. It’s different from the daffodil and the bleeding heart. This one has wide, spiky petals, and is a soft purple.

JARVIS doesn’t wait to be prompted this time. “This one is a gladiolus. In Victorian flower language, it represents strength of character, honor, and conviction.”

That definitely fits Tony. He supposes the flowers were all supposed to represent him, and isn’t that a sick, twisted thought? That these beautiful, innocent little blooms are supposed to kill Tony, rip apart his chest until he chokes on his own blood, all the while screaming the best facets of his personality.

The daffodil: his unrequited love; the bleeding heart: his emotions, his kindness, his compassion and empathy and love for all of mankind; the gladiolus: his bravery, his strength, his honor, his determination.

_ It’s not fair _ , Steve thinks. Tears slip out of his eyes, spilling into the bowl where the gentle flower floats, staining it further with his heart. How cruel can life be that Tony opens his heart up enough to love someone, only for it to be dashed and that love to kill him?

He feels for him, he really does. He wishes whoever Tony dared to fall in love with feels guilty for the rest of their lives – and then he can’t help but feel horrible. It’s not their fault.

He heads down to the lab where Tony is fiddling with the armor. It’s a bit of a surreal experience, watching his own body do something that he’s never done before from the outside. He stands there for a moment, drinking in the sight, before knocking on the glass door.

Tony looks up in Steve’s direction, then motions for the door to slide open. “Cap! What do you want?” he asks once Steve steps in, looking unnaturally bright and energetic. On Steve’s face, it’s a bit disturbing.  

“Tony, we need to talk.” Steve can’t get over hearing Tony’s own voice saying his own name while calling Steve’s body Tony, but he ignores it for now.

Tony deflates slightly. “I – I know this is about the Hanahaki thing. JARVIS told me what happened.”

“Oh,” Steve says, not particularly surprised. 

“I’m really sorry,” Tony continues, “it’s – I’m sorry you have to deal with it. I’m working on this as much as I can so that we can reverse the tech and you don’t have to suffer anymore.”

Steve tilts his head, letting out a short laugh. “What – that’s not why – I’m not upset because of  _ that _ . I can handle the pain. It’s just – you’re  _ dying _ . Because you’re in love. Why won’t you tell anyone?”

A corner of his lips quirks upwards. “Do you really think anyone would appreciate it if they found out Tony Stark was in love with them? Especially when it’s unrequited?”

“You don’t know that,” Steve says, stepping forward.

“Steve, the entire point of the disease is that it’s unrequited. Otherwise I wouldn’t be–” Tony cuts himself off and shakes his head. “I didn’t tell anyone because it’s pathetic. Look at me, Steve.” He straightens up, widening his blue eyes. Steve can’t look away, despite the fact that it’s his face. Tony looks so open, so vulnerable in that moment that he wants to hold him close and never let go. His eyes are shiny, glinting like shards of glass. “I’m dying of a broken heart. Don’t you realize how sad that is?”

“I don’t think it’s sad, Tony.” He comes closer, pressing a hand against the left side of his chest. “I think it shows how much you can love. That’s not a bad thing.”

Tony shakes his head, slumping over onto the work bench, all his strings cut loose. “I don’t want to talk about it, Steve.”

“I did research,” Steve insists. “Apparently, if you surgically remove the mass then you’ll be healed. It’s – almost like cancer, in a way. Just… with flowers, I guess. And cancer is harder to get rid of. Okay, that was a bad analogy.”   
  
Tony frowns at him. “If you do that, you lose all love and emotion for that person. I would–” his voice grows thick, as if he’s being choked by the flowers in this body as well, because his love is just that strong, “–rather die than give that up. The flowers, they’re a part of me, Steve. I  _ need  _ them.”

“They’re killing you, Tony,” Steve says, as soft as the velvety petals that spill out of his mouth. “You need to let go.”

Tony scoffs, a bitter and caustic thing, acidic in the way it forced its way out of his throat. “No. I love them and they love me.”

That had been a symptom, Steve remembers – an increasing dependence on the love and flowers. They would take over the amygdala, erase any sort of fear the person had over the situation and replace it with an unhealthy obsession and dependence on the flowers. 

But… Tony’s not in his body at this moment. If anyone should be affected by the disease, it should be Steve. So then why is he so insistent on it? His heart is clear and his mind sharp. There should be no reason that Tony still won’t go through with the surgery.

“They don’t love you, Tony, they’re fucking flowers. They’re  _ killing  _ you.” Steve pauses, and then, “What about the person you love? Are you sure they don’t love you? It could just be that, I don’t know, the disease developed because you  _ thought  _ they didn’t love you.”

Tony looks at him, tears shimmering like pearls in his eyes. “They don’t love me, Steve. Who would?”

“ _ I  _ would,” Steve says, stepping closer.

Tony starts crying for real then, tears slipping down his cheeks in a mini-waterfall. “No, you wouldn’t. No one would.”

“Tony,” Steve starts.

Tony turns his back to him. “Get out, Steve,” he says tiredly, voice still clogged with tears and flowers. “I don’t want to see your face.”

Steve wants to point out that it’s  _ Tony’s  _ face right now, but he thinks better of it and leaves the workshop.

  
  
  


_ The first time it happened, Tony felt a flutter in his chest as he watched Steve fail yet another cooking attempt. He’d been sitting in the kitchen for a change of pace, working, only to get distracted by Steve attempting to cook chicken noodle soup for a very sick Natasha Romanoff.  _

_ Steve had looked over at Tony sheepishly after he checked the pot and realized the stock had burnt off, blue eyes sparkling with unbidden joy and cheeks flushed ruby red, and Tony realized, like a jolt of lightning, that he loved him. _

_ It wasn’t too long after that the tickle came, and Tony thought maybe he had contracted the cold from Natasha. He wasn’t particularly happy about that because any type of illness was dangerous for him, even the common cold, and he would have to take extra precautions to make sure that he wouldn’t, well, die. _

_ After the first flower, he would have rather had the cold. At least he had a chance of surviving. _

_ With the Hanahaki disease, there was no cure. _

_ Whether he gave the flowers up or not, it was fatal. _

_ But Tony knew from the start, since he discovered that removing the flowers would destroy whatever love he had for Steve, he would rather die than give up something so precious, so delicate. For once, he had tangible proof that he wasn’t as heartless as everyone ( _ _ himself _ _ ) made him out to be. With the fragile flower cupped in his palm, not a blemish in sight, he could look at it and assure himself that he was capable of love, of kindness, of softness. _

_ Removing that would just prove the darkness inside of him. _

_ For once in his life, Tony couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let the monster ( _ _ him _ _ ) swallow him up, envelop him in the shadows, replace the love, the flowers in his heart with greasy blackness. Even now, he imagined himself choking on the oil, spitting it up. _

_ The flowers were precious, beautiful – love. They represented the best parts of Steve. He couldn’t let any sort of darkness tarnish them. _

  
  
  


In the next two days, Steve throws up ten times – each instance feeling worse and worse. And with every flower, more blood comes out. 

According to JARVIS, Tony isn’t going to live past this month. He’s been deteriorating for months, and the disease generally proves fatal in one year if left untreated.

And that’s another thing. They need to figure out how to reverse the mindswap, before Steve dies in Tony’s stead.

Not that he wants Tony to die, but he knows the immense amount of guilt Tony would feel for essentially sentencing Steve to death with the roots – the  _ chains  _ – tangled up in his chest. Steve knows Tony, and he knows that Tony would prefer death to having Steve die for a perceived fault of his.

Not to mention that he would be trapped in Steve’s body permanently that way.

This whole thing is a mess, and sometimes Steve wishes for blissful ignorance, that he wasn’t painfully aware of how much time Tony had left – and every time he hates himself a little more. How could he possibly wish for things to be easy on himself, when Tony is the one suffering here?

Tony’s seemingly given up, if he ever had hope in the first place. He still refuses to tell Steve who he’s in love with, and he refuses to get the surgery.

That’s what’s making Steve frustrated, he thinks. There’s such an easy fix. He understands not wanting to give up love, but he also understands wanting to live. _He_ loves Tony. _He_ wants him to live.

What is so hard to understand about that?

And perhaps after the surgery, Tony could still fall in love with someone else. It doesn’t completely remove one’s feelings, just one’s feelings for a certain person. There’s plenty of other people for Tony to fall in love with, and plenty of other people that could fall in love with Tony.

By this point, he’s just being a stubborn bastard.

Realistically, Steve could just get the surgery. He has control of Tony’s body, nothing’s stopping him. But the thought of going against Tony’s wishes and doing something he explicitly does not want to do seems disgusting, dehumanizing. He’s not going to do that to his friend.

“How are you feeling, Cap?” Tony asks as Steve flops onto the couch in the workshop.

“Awful,” Steve says honestly, “and not just because of the disease. I just feel… old. Tired. In pain.”

Tony smiles a small, secretive smile. It seems painful in its genuineness. “That’s how the normal world works, Cap. People grow old. They die.”

He walked right into that one. “Sorry,” he says. “I guess I’ve just been spoiled with the serum.”

“No offense taken,” Tony says, glancing at him and then back down at the gun used to swap their minds. “It’s – an experience, being in a body that never seems to suffer.”

“How do  _ you  _ feel?” Steve asks.

Tony looks at him then, with his dead, darkened eyes. “Empty. Hollow. Like I’m missing a part of me.”

  
  
  


Tony is in love with Steve.

There, he said it.

He’s been in love with Steve for years, probably, but it was only about a year ago that he first realized it. It was also about a year ago that he realized Steve didn’t love him back, and that was how it spiralled.

He knows he could easily fix this by admitting his love to Steve, in the case that Steve  _ does  _ love him back, but he’s a coward. He can’t handle the possibility that Steve might reject him, condemn him to death right there on the spot.

It...really isn’t that Tony’s given up on life. He doesn’t  _ want  _ to die. He just doesn’t see the point in trying hard when the only alternative is to live without the love he has.

He also knows how unhealthy that is, relying on love to the point that he’d rather die, but after the life he’s led – he can’t help but cling onto the petals, each one a delicate reminder of his heart, of  _ Steve _ . It’s wrong, everyone will hate him for it, but Tony can’t bring himself to care anymore.

He wants Steve, desires him with every fiber of his being – and if he can’t have Steve, then there’s no point in fighting any further.

Besides, Steve outright said he loved Tony and it changed nothing, so why should he bother?

At least this way, he can harbor a spark of hope in his chest, as light and fragile as a candle flame at the moment, but with the potential to grow into an inferno if fanned right. That hope is all that’s keeping him going, and it’s all he needs in these last few days anyway.

He’s mostly just worried right now that Steve will die in his body instead. He couldn’t handle that. He can barely handle the thought of Steve not loving him, but Steve dying because of Tony’s love? It’s unthinkable, so agonizing to his heart that if someone stabbed him in the chest, he’d only feel relief from the pain.

  
  
  


On the fifth day after their bodyswap, Doctor Strange arrives from wherever the hell he was. He takes one look at the blaster, decides it’s been imbued with the power of the Mind Stone, and reverses the effects of it. 

Tony wakes up with a gasp, fighting for air that won’t come, his chest feeling as though it’s on fire and his heart stamping a tattoo into his ribcage.

“Woah, Tony!” Large hands come to rest on his shoulders, grounding him, and he slows his gasps, trying to breathe in as deep as he can without breaking the fragile connections of his chest. “That’s it,” Steve says in his calm voice, the voice Tony had gotten accustomed to hearing from his own mouth, “breathe.”

Tony starts to breathe normally, instinctively falling back into the pattern he’d had before – all this, but he can’t quite stop the tears from coming to his eyes. He’s back in his body. He has his flowers again.

He’s not empty.

He falls back in relief, struggling to breathe but this time because of how joyous he is. For the first time in days, he feels like himself again. He  _ missed  _ this.

“Tony?” Steve says gently. “You alright?”

“Y – yeah, I am,” Tony mumbles dismissively, looking around the room. Strange is watching him carefully, a deep frown on his face. The three of them are the only ones in the room. “Where is everyone?”

“I sent them out not long before you woke up,” Steve says. “I thought you might – like the privacy.”

Tony sits up, leaning his bed against the pillow. “I do.” Hesitantly, he says, “Thanks.”

Strange clears his throat, drawing their attention. When he catches Tony’s eyes, he steps forward. “I sense a deep struggle within you. It’s eating you up, will kill you if you don’t do anything soon.”

“Can you do anything about it?” Steve asks before Tony can begin to think of a response – he’s slow, no longer on top of things.

“Is it the Hanahaki disease?” Strange says instead of answering. “I can feel the disturbance within your heart.”

Steve grabs Tony’s hand, squeezing it tightly in a warning for him to be quiet. And in the end, Tony listens, because he loves Steve and he can’t stand to hurt him anymore than he already has –  _ will _ . “It is,” Steve says. “Tell me there’s a way for you to fix it without hurting him.”

Strange frowns. “Why haven’t you done the surgery?”

“Tony doesn’t want to give up his feelings,” Steve snaps, almost defensively. As if he’s waiting for Strange to judge Tony just so Steve can fight him. “Just give me a straight answer. Yes or no?”

Strange shakes his head, a lock of his hair falling across his forehead. “No. I could perform the spell without the surgery but it would lead to the same results. The flowers are intricately tied to your heart and brain. They’re the physical manifestation of your love, in a sense, watered by your sorrows. Removing the physical manifestation, no matter the method, will remove your love as well. But if the person you’re in love with were to fall in love with you as well, then the flowers would wilt because they’re no longer being fed by your sadness.”

Steve glances down at their joined hands. “Who is it, Tony? Who are you in love with?”

Tony is still staring straight ahead at Strange, refusing to look Steve in the eye. He shakes his head wordlessly, lips parted.

Strange glances at Steve for a second, then back at Tony. “You – you should tell him.”

“No, I can’t. If he – doesn’t love me, I’ll die.”

Steve tightens his grip, pulling Tony in so that his temple is pressed against his chest. “You’ll die either way, you idiot.”

“But I  _ know  _ he doesn’t love me that way,” Tony whispers, holding onto the warmth as best he can as it slips between his fingers like sand, desperate for the slightest bit of attention from the man he loves. “He said he loved me, and it didn’t change anything. So I might as well die.”

He barely notices Strange slipping out to give them a bit of privacy.

“You have so much more to live for,” Steve says, his voice cracking around the edges with his suppressed sorrow, the sadness filtering through. “Don’t let this man, whoever he is, kill you just because he’s too stupid to realize what he has.”

Tony stares up at him. He wants to laugh, he really does, at the irony of Steve unknowingly insulting himself. But he can’t bring himself to do it, because he knows he’ll start crying instead, and then he’ll spill everything to Steve – and he can’t let that happen. It’s bad enough Steve knows he’s dying. 

Tony’s already handled everything from the last time he was dying. All he needs now is to wait for the jaws of death to engulf him, take him away from the agony that has colored his world red for so long. Even now, he can feel the ache in his chest of all the flowers growing, watered by his tears, bursting into his lungs and heart like blades of despair.

This beautiful pain has been his companion for so long he almost can’t imagine what it’ll feel like once he dies. Will it be relieving, or will he miss it in even in death?

Or will it still be there mocking him, making him suffer for daring to taint such a pure thing?

All he can do right now is hold onto Steve in a mockery of what he could have had, latch onto it like the slightest bit of weak sunlight after being locked in a dark cell for ages. It’s all he can get, but somehow it’s enough.

  
  
  


Over the next few days, Tony deteriorates. He’s constantly coughing, bits of petals falling out of his mouth. It gets bad enough that the rest of the Avengers start to catch on – Natasha especially. 

She barges into his bedroom one day while he’s cleaning up after his latest fit. She frowns down at the delicate gladiolus and then steps on it. Tony feels a part of him shatter.

“Don’t do that to yourself,” she says. “The flowers are killing you. They’re not your friends, they’re not your love, they’re only there because you’ve given up on everything else.”

He straightens up, still kneeling, and watches her as continues speaking.  

“A long time ago, a girl started to cough out dahlias – a flower that represents beauty, elegance,” her voice is muted, as delicate and dangerous as the rest of her, “she was in love with her teacher – the Winter Soldier, the man who had trained her since she was two. Eventually someone found out about flowers and reported her.”

Tony stares at her, entranced, as she speaks. He had known, objectively, that other people had gone through his situation – it was just such a rare disease that it was hard to remember that when he was in the midst of it.

“They could have killed her, let her suffer in silence and die, but the man who she was in love with realized he loved her, too,” Natasha continues. Her face is marble, pale and still. There’s not even a twitch to betray what she’s thinking or feeling. “Not romantically, she was far too young, but as a friend. A companion. He cut out the flowers from her chest using his own knives. It was the worst pain she had ever gone through, but at the end all she could feel was relief. Relief from the obsessive love, relief from the pain that had haunted her for so long. Relief from just one of the things that controlled her life, her fate.”

“Natasha…” he breathes.

Her boot presses further down into the flower. “Think about it, Tony. With a  _ clear _ head.” She kneels down to his level, looking directly into his eyes. Her eyes are soft, green like the leaves of the flower she had just crushed. “Don’t let them get to you.”

He sits there, paralyzed, as she presses a gentle kiss to his forehead, and suddenly he can’t stop the tears from coming, rushing down his cheeks in an avalanche of sorrow. “I can’t do this, Natasha. I can’t tell him.”

“You’re a strong person, Tony. You can do it.” Natasha wraps her arms around him, holding him tight to her breast and kissing him on the temple again.

It would be nice, hopeful, optimistic to say that he got the strength from her, told Steve the truth, and lived, but Tony knows that’s not how this story ends.

Unfortunately, some stories are just meant to end tragically – Romeo and Juliet, Antigone, Doctor Faustus.

Tony and Steve.

  
  
  


Steve knows when it’s happening. 

Tony had felt awful that day, coughing near non-stop with dark blood dripping from his mouth. He locked himself in the workshop and refused to speak to anyone.

Steve can feel it coming. There’s a dark, damp misery pervading the air and his chest, weighing it down with phantom flowers. The sky is gray and rainy, mourning the coming loss. It cries for those who can’t bring themselves to tears.

For Tony.

Steve paces outside the workshop, hoping that Tony will let him in. He gets wanting to be by himself, he really does, but he can’t handle the thought of Tony dying alone, locked up in his workshop with no one there to accompany him. He’s been having nightmares for two weeks with that exact vision flashing through his head.

_ You don’t know that Tony’s going to die, though _ , he tells himself. He refuses to acknowledge it. Steve stops and looks up at the nearest camera. “JARVIS? How’s Tony doing?”

“As well as he can be, given the circumstances.” JARVIS’ voice is soft, lilting, like a dandelion in the breeze.

Steve lets out an aggravated sigh. “Can you ask him to let me in?”

“I can, Captain, but if he refuses again then I would suggest trying again later.” JARVIS lowers his voice, as though he’s telling a secret. “I will give you updates on Mr. Stark, provided he doesn’t forbid me.”

Steve nods, waiting for JARVIS to tell him what Tony said. He crosses his arms, feeling a coldness in his bones like he’s back in the ice.

As an answer, the workshop door slides open. Steve immediately steps in, zeroing in on Tony, who’s seated on the ratty, old couch in the corner of the lab. His face is lily-white and there’s deep, red blood the color of roses staining his lips and beard.

“Steve,” he rasps.

“Tony,” Steve says, crossing over to sit by him. He grabs Tony’s face, turning it this way and that to get a good look at him and reassure himself that Tony’s fine, he’s still alive. “How are you?”

“Steve, I’m not going to live past tonight.”

_ It’s almost funny in a way _ , Steve thinks hysterically, watching a drop of blood spill over Tony’s rosy lip, that such a simple question – one that is asked everyday – can have such an awful answer. “You – you don’t know that.” Steve ignores the ache in his own chest, the fact that he had woken up knowing what was to come. 

“I do,” Tony insists, voice high and frantic. His eyes are wide and haunted, darkness underlining them. “I can feel it. They’ve finally killed me.”   
  
Steve shoots up off the couch, grabbing Tony by the shoulders and shaking him. “No, they haven’t! If you would just – there’s still time. It doesn’t have to be this way.” 

Tony shrugs lightly, eyes dead. “I know. But I want it to be.”

Steve lowers onto his knees so that he’s eye-level with Tony. He doesn’t understand, can’t fathom why Tony’s given up like this. It makes no sense. He’s  _ always  _ fought for his life. And then suddenly, he’d rather die? He leans forward, catching Tony’s eyes flicker down to his lips. “Make me understand,” he breathes.

And Tony does.

  
  
  
  
  
Despite all the time Steve had to prepare, despite all the warnings Tony had given him, he still isn’t ready once Tony collapses, blood pouring out of his mouth at an alarming rate. He kneels down, ready to pick up Tony and rush him to the medical wing, but Tony croaks out a weak, “Don’t.”   
  
Steve pauses, hands hovering over his body. He watches, sitting back on his heels, as Tony manages to push himself up despite the agony he must be feeling. 

“I want to be here when it happens,” Tony says softly. “This is my home.” He looks over at Steve, eyes shiny. “ _ You’re  _ my home.”

Steve stares, struck speechless, as Tony continues, “That’s why I let you in. I just – wanted to see you one last time.” He scoffs. “I guess my selfishness won out this time.”

“Tony,” Steve says, and then quiets down. He gently leads Tony over to the couch, encouraging him to lie back while Steve kneels on the floor beside him. 

Tony is hit with another coughing fit, several bleeding hearts spilling out of his mouth and landing on his lap. Steve can’t help but think of how fitting it is that that’s the flower that will kill Tony in the end, and he feels a stab of ice cold self-loathing strike him from the thought. 

“Is there… anything you need?” Steve asks. He hates that Tony refused to tell anyone else, torturing Steve with the fact that he had no one else to talk to about this. But in the end, he will always listen to Tony’s wishes. If this is what Tony wants, that’s what he’ll get.

Tony looks at him softly, eyes wide and and more vulnerable than Steve has ever seen them. “I’m sorry I never told you,” he chokes out, voice hoarse and raspy. Blood drips from his mouth, as red as the petals he would cough out.

There’s a pause where Steve’s mind goes blank, for just a split second, but in the next it’s in overdrive, working to make up for the moment he had lost. He goes over every sentence, every word Tony has ever said to him in all the years they’ve known each other, trying to find a pattern of something he isn’t even sure of yet. “What – what do you mean?”

“I… I won’t tell you.” Tony’s breathing is getting labored, wet and gurgling. Almost unconsciously, it seems, he reaches out for Steve’s hand, and Steve obliges him. “I won’t... hurt you that way.” He starts coughing again, wheezing. His body is limp, muscles too weak to hold any tension in them – and yet, his grip gets tighter. 

Steve puts his other hand on Tony’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. He closes his eyes, for just the slightest fraction of a moment, trying to put all the pieces together, and suddenly, it hits him, a tsunami wave of realization and horror coasting over him. 

He blinks open his eyes, the words, “I love you,” spilling out the way they should have done months ago instead of the flowers. “Tony, I love you back.” His gaze sharpens, focusing on the man he loves – the man who’s suffered for all these months because Steve thought he didn’t love him back.

Tony doesn’t respond, and he never will, because the flowers finally consumed his body, his heart, his love.

Steve stares in disbelief. “No,” he feels his lips shape out. There’s a buzzing in his ears, his head, drowning out the sound of anything else. All he can focus on is his own pounding heartbeat, the way Tony’s should have been – “No, that’s not – this can’t happen now. Not right  _ now _ .”

He feels cold – is he back in the ice?

Hands are pulling at him, dragging him away, and he realizes he’s wrapped around Tony, arms pressing his body close to his chest as he cries, begs, screams for him to wake up, to tell him he loves him.

All turns black.

  
  
  


Steve is running.

It’s all he does now, really – run and punch. It’s a simple life, and Steve prefers it that way. He’d rather not get into all the complicated things that had filled it thus far.

And so he runs, until his chest is aching and his lungs are burning, and even then he continues running.

It won’t be enough. It never is.

No matter how hard he pushes himself, how hard he tries, he’ll never feel the the exquisite pain, the delicate agony, that had colored Tony’s life. He’ll never know how it feels to have the embodiment of his love, his heart tear apart his chest until he’s choking on it.

Sometimes, he thinks that’s what’s happening to him anyway.

But there are no flowers, and until then he’ll never feel what Tony had to go through.

It’s been an hour since he started and he still feels energetic enough to keep going. It’s not going to happen today.

Steve finally comes to a stop, gasping for air and feeling sweat drip down his back. He leans over, hands resting on his knees.

A burst of color catches his eyes. Steve turns his head and immediately feels a burning rush of anger, of hatred, fill him up.

The cluster of daffodils wave at him innocently, their petals a bright, sunshine yellow. Steve creeps closer, making sure to make each of his steps land softly on the grass.

These – damned  _ things  _ had ripped Tony away from him, filled his chest up to capacity and even more than that, until he was choking on them. Until they tore open his heart and he died. Never again will Steve see his smile, his sparkling eyes, hear his rich voice and musical laughter.

Never again will Steve be able to love.

And then suddenly Steve finds himself sobbing hysterically, great, big, heaving things that tear their way out of his throat as he stomps on the flowers, crushing them the same way they did to Tony.

It’s been a month – Tony’s long gone cold six feet under while people constantly torment his legacy by placing those horrible, awful things at his grave. Steve has been militantly removing and destroying them, but it’s not enough.

Nothing ever will be.

Steve falls back and stares at the trampled patch of ground. Guilt licks at a part of him, over destroying the environment, but he forcibly suppresses it. Tony’s gone because of one of the most beautiful, delicate parts of nature – it’s a painful irony that even now he can’t get over.

He doesn’t think he ever will.

  
  
  


They all mourn. 

Thor has lost the once-permanent joy in his eyes. Bruce refuses to step out of his lab. Natasha and Clint spend all their time on SHIELD missions.

They’re all missing the heart of their team – all because that heart couldn’t handle the love it had.

  
  
  
  


“Fuck!” Steve hisses as he cuts himself again, stepping away from the punching bag and taking a look at his bruised, bloody knuckles. They sting, but they’re a welcome distraction from the agony in his heart.

He wipes away the blood that wells up from the new scratch and turns back to the bag, readying himself for another round of punching – except a small, delicate hand encloses over his fist, stopping him from reaching his target.

Steve whirls around, ready to fight whoever interrupted him. He blinks when he sees that it’s just Natasha, and he loosens his body, coming out of his fight stance. “Nat,” he says.

“Steve,” Natasha says back to him. “We need to talk.”

Steve has a feeling he knows what this is about and tightens his jaw. “No, we really don’t.” He turns back to the punching bag, but Natasha rests a hand on his shoulder. 

“Steve, I understand what you’re going through. I understood what – Tony – was going through, too. You can’t let his death control you.”

“I’m not,” Steve says stiffly, refusing to look at her and see the pity in her eyes.

“You loved him,” Natasha says quietly. “And he loved you. It was obvious. I just – he didn’t die because he wanted to die. He died because he loved you so much he couldn’t let you go. He  _ never  _ gave up. That’s not Tony.”

Steve hunches his shoulders defensively, staring intently at the punching bag. “Oh, I’m sure he told you everything,” he says sarcastically.

“He never did. I’m just – good at inferring. I’ve… been through a similar situation,” Natasha admits, voice fragile and vulnerable.

He pauses, moving so that he can get a good look at her. Natasha’s face is soft, open – much more than Steve has ever seen it. “I…”

Natasha shakes her head, strands of her red hair – the color of blood, Tony’s blood – swaying. “It’s fine, I got over it years ago. But – accept his choice, Steve. He did it because he loved you. I know it seems selfish and awful, and it was, it really was, but at the end of the day… his love really was that pure.”

Steve frowns at her and looks away, refusing to speak.

There’s a sigh and Natasha presses a kiss to his cheek. “Just – think about what I said, okay?”

Despite his best efforts, Steve does. 

  
  
  


The stars are especially bright tonight.

Steve sits down in the grass, a gentle breeze ruffling his hair. He stares up at the sky, trying to memorize every detail, every shining light of a star. It sparkles like Tony’s eyes, he realizes.

They used to do it a lot, before. Sit down outside. Tony would point out every constellation, every star out to him.

He would use the telescope he had made from scratch to show Steve all the planets, the galaxies, the stars out there. There had been a bit of mania to it, which Steve now knows is because of his fear of what was coming. 

But he still spoke of the sky so fondly – and even as Tony would wax poetic of the stars, all Steve could think to watch was the stars in Tony’s eyes.

And Steve would feel so insignificant, so tiny, but it didn’t matter in the end, because to him, Tony was his universe. He just – he hadn’t known at the time.

And it was too late to tell Tony that.

Somehow though, the ever-persistent ache in his chest has lessened today. Looking up at the sky, Steve can finally take a deep breath, letting loose tension that had seemingly been with him for as long as he could remember.

Tony’s gone, and it’s all Steve’s fault.

But he watches the twinkling lights in the black painting, broken up by brushstrokes of blue and purple, and imagines Tony looking down at him. He wonders whether Tony misses him still, or if he’s found happiness. A part of him, a small part of him, hopes Tony still loves him.

One of the stars shines brighter than the others, and Steve likes to think it’s the arc reactor – Tony’s heart.

The grass rustles as the gentle breeze picks up. Steve glances down at a tickle on his head and spots a small wildflower. His first instinct is to crush it, like he did all the others, but his hand hesitates above it. Softly, he plucks it from the earth, cradling it in his palm.

Tony died to let his love bloom. It wasn’t that he gave up on life – rather, between love and life, he chose love. All the flowers in the Earth are remnants of his heart, the pieces that were left when it cracked open.

Steve shouldn’t hate the flowers, when they are all he has left of Tony.

Smiling for what seems like the first time since he had been born, Steve closes his hand over the tiny flower, holding onto the memory of his love.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr at [scaryy-noodles](https://scaryy-noodles.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Also, join me and my friends on our 18+ [Stony Discord server](https://discord.gg/TpCN2A2)!


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